What is the current state of sales enablement?

Cameron Tanner

Sales Productivity and Readiness, Amazon Web Services

I think a lot of organizations are in this ‘wait and see’ stance. They’ve heard the terms and it’s kind of bubbling up but a lot of people just don’t really know what it is and isn’t. Some of the standard arguments of ‘isn’t that sales training?’ or ‘don’t you mean sales operations?’ are still really lingering and I think enablement hasn’t fully emerged with its own voice, its own stance. It draws upon so many sales-related disciplines that I think people are gravitating towards it. I think there’s a general feeling of knowing they need this thing but not necessarily knowing how or what aspect they need. But I think the necessity of the visibility is only going to increase.

Roderick Jefferson

Vice President, Global Enablement, Marketo

It’s a continually evolving field and stakeholders should remain open to technological breakthroughs and new methodologies that can improve current capabilities. As the mindset, behaviors and needs of your prospects and customers are shifting, you must be prepared to change the way that you support them. In other words, ‘learn their language, don’t expect them to learn yours.’

Marcela Piñeros

Vice-President, Go-to-Market Enablement , New Relic

I would say that [sales enablement] is much more data driven than it has been, up until now it’s just been sort of reactive. I think that it’s much more around maximizing your tech stack so that any face-to-face content that you have is going to deliver the highest impact to the business so that with resource constrained organizations you’re really putting those people in the right places.